The 121st Boston Marathon

2:53:35. fading from mile 7...
This year's Boston Marathon was one that I truly was under-prepared for. Arguably, that statement would have been false if I hadn't fallen ill with a sinus infection and a stomach flu right before the race. It was completely in question as to whether or not I would toe the line on Monday the 17th. On the Friday prior, I was thinking about going to a hospital. By Saturday evening my intestines seemed to be regularizing, Sunday it was better but still not fully normal. Let's just leave it at that. Sunday morning I felt so weak from all of what I was going through I couldn't run a full mile and just jogged around the hotel parking lot of maybe all of 8 minutes covering possibly .75miles. That was my first attempt at a run since a short, slow, dizzying 3mile jog in a nature preserve six days earlier.
But as on Sunday evening I felt "almost normal", so I figured, this is as good as it gets and I have to try.
Another large motivator was my team. Knowing the guys we had going into the race, I figured I would be an important player in our best chance in the team competition. But Most importantly my housemate/teammate, Brendan Conway. This was his first Boston and we had traveled together to the race. In my first Boston Marathon I didn't go solo. I wasn't about to bail on him. It can be overwhelming figuring out all that crazy city marathon stuff early in the morning, and everything is better with a teammate!

Ready to go, ready or not! Brendan Conway on the left, Yours' truly on the right.

At the least, I would start the race and go as far as I could. Caution be damned! So, we left our hotel, moved the car to a train station, hopped on the T that brought us to Chinatown and walked down to the bag drop on Boylston St and then back over the the street between the Public Garden and the Common. After a little while, we were on our way to Hopkinton! Right now, I can't recall a whole lot of what we talked about along the ride, but yea I was worried. I tried my best to put on a happy face. We both knew I was a big question mark, would I finish? would I end up in a hospital?
As the time came to leave the Athlete's village, we walked/jogged toward the starting corrals and found a couple of our teammates Woody Kongsamut and Brian Weitz also waiting to jump into a toilet one last time. Woody broke off early, then the remaining three of us moved the rest of the way up toward the starting corrals. We were each in separate corrals and so I wished them luck and ran off to the last toilets to be found before the start, did what I could in there and hoped for no incidents along the way. I did see a few familiar faces that have a tradition of gathering in that small park right before the start. More good luck exchanged (By the way Patrick Walsh, if you're reading, the guy from Seattle was Jarrett Kunze and I found him moments after we parted, small world indeed).
Entering the first corral, I shimmied my way forward a bit and found the aforementioned Jarrett Kunze, another GSTC stud. I asked Jarrett, "What's the target?" He says, "2:39/40." I tell him, "I'll try to hang." I knew when I said it, that this was a bad decision for me, but this wasn't going to be a banner race for me either way. So as I am a fool, and I did a foolish thing. The race started and we were jammed up by a lot of wild action all around us, and surprisingly, we hit a slow 6:20 first mile, both of us knowing this too slow, so we picked it up into the downhill, by the 5k mark, we were back on target for a 2:39.
It was warm and I felt hot and not happy, over the next 5k I could sense this pace was not truly mine to keep, I warned him I was going to probably slip back, my 7th mile was 10 seconds off the 6th and I thought "hold this pace and you're making honest work of it", my body simply didn't agree. I held that pace for the 7th and 8th mile and then it was a bad time that got worse along the way. All in all, I've had worse days, but it sucks knowing you are doomed with 19 miles to go. (I'm smirking as I type that). Sadly for Jarrett's part, I passed him around the 18th mile as he was walking up one of the infamous Newton Hills, for him the wheels came off in vicious fashion.
So, yea, I fought the good fight, and it just wasn't my day. I didn't stop for anything, but I was passed by a lot of people and that is a humbling pain that sometimes you must suffer in this sport. Like the truckers say "Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes You're the bug!"
There was a lot of dumping of water over my head along the way, smearing cold water under my arms and on my thighs, whatever I could do along the way to stay cool. As usual, the crowds were incredibly supportive and supplemented the aid stations with wet paper towels, orange slices, bottles of cold water, ice cubes, ice pops. Incredible, absolutely incredible. I love the Boston Marathon, love it! Take a look at splits and images below. I finished 2nd man on our team by 1 second, so that is amusing. This was one of my worse results among the seven times I've raced here, bearing zero shame in it. Again, I didn't think I could even start, I thought I would cramp up or pass out sooner or later, but it was like Hanukah or something, with enough in the tank for 1 mile I managed to run 26.2. Interesting thought-my first go in Boston was ten years prior to this year's. It doesn't feel like it's been that long...but ten years is more than a blink. I'll be back for #8 next year and my 5th in a row! Hope is alive, 2:29 is still possible. Perhaps I'll be slaying another Unicorn in September...let's have a talk with Pat McCloskey about that.

It was hot out there for a guy who was dehydrated for 3-4 straight days. 

good start but it was all a bluff

slower slower, death march city

Ladies and Gentlemen, We have lift off! That's turning on Hereford, almost 26 miles deep and I can fly!

Giving it all that was left, a proper marathon kick, as you do.

Count em! That's 7, and I ran each one of them MYSELF!

A bit closer, 07', 10', 12', 14', 15', 16', 17'  I ran each race, I deserve 7 medals because I ran 7 marathons in Boston. See how that works? Nuff said. ;)

Congratulations to all my running friends who competed, it is a difficult task no matter what happens on race day. Thanks to the many friends and strangers that cheered for me along the way, it put a smile on my face when I felt like I should quit running altogether in certain moments.
Now if my lungs clear up from this Upper Respiratory Infection, maybe I'll have some other spring/summer races to talk about. Stay tuned!

XC Regionals 1999 and My Father the Truck Driver

I just had a chat with one of my Coaches from College, Mark Haug.  He took notice of my recent 5000m track race.  So we reminisced about the "old days". Mark was Coach for seven yrs or more before he handed the reins over to his assistant James McCusker. Mark and James were teammates in their own College days at Ramapo.  They were terrific guys, both of them.  They motivated me, and made our team feel like it was a band of warriors.  Tonight, Mark referred to us as "The Bad News Bears of the NJAC", and I can say that was fairly true.  We had crappy uniforms, no real warmups, old busted vans with no team insignia, and an old tattered bag that carried our first aid and spike kit. Mark called it..."Red Bag". As we boarded one of the anonymous white or grey 15 passenger vans that Ramapo had in it's stable of vehicles for its Athletic teams, Mark would shout "Who's got Red Bag?!" Just like that.  Not the Red Bag...just, Red Bag.  Mark would make us do 10 pushups if he heard us cursing.

I liked these things, strange stuff like the importance of a team member grabbing a Red Bag named, Red Bag, Punishment Pushups, just quirky stuff that was unique to our team.
 Workouts were rough, and while some may argue that it is not a best practice to keep your athletes in the dark, he wouldn't tell us what the workout was going to be.  On two occasions I made the error of asking "So, what's the workout today?" My teammates would sharply object, "Are you kidding? You don't ask what the workout is! Now it's going to be more!"  Again, if this was true, we could say...bad coaching.  But I think the point was, that Mark would enjoy toying with our minds a bit.  Keeping us on our toes, to keep ourselves ready for workouts, and not prejudge how your were feeling about the effort you were going to give.  Just that you were going to run your guts out.  As you all may have gathered by now, I enjoy the trial by fire method.  The Fall of 1999 through the Spring of 2000 were trying times in my life, and most of what mattered to me was fighting the good fight on Tuesday, Thursday, and most of all Saturdays...Race day!

Letchworth! The Grand Canyon of the East!

I had some breakthrough moments during that Cross Country season and a couple during the track season as well.  Perhaps the best moment in all of the mayhem that was my Freshman yr of collegiate running, was the Regional Championship at Letchworth State Park in Upstate New York.
 I'd been fighting cold/flu syptoms for a few days, but it wasn't bad enough that I would have bowed out on the trip. So, naturally, I was nervous that I would run poorly.

The drive up there was long, riding in a Coach USA bus, we watched Orgazmo on VHS(for real), still one of the funniest movies I've ever seen.  Back in the day before cell phones, we used calling cards.  I called my Mother before leaving Campus and told her where and when I was racing.  It just so happened that my Father, the truck driver, was possibly going to be in the area the morning of the race.  I dismissed this as a non-factor.  I mean, what is the likelihood that a 48' foot tractor-trailer is going to drive into a State Park to see a Collegiate DIII XC race?!  But he did it!  One of the biggest surprise of my lifetime!  My father pulled that truck in there, and made well in time to see the race! 

My Father, George Anis, the Line Haul Driver

Maybe this is 53ft? Well, you get the point, Dad drives these.

Much credit to my Dad, a guy who isn't a runner or all that much into sports, and most often was so exhausted from his work, wasn't too energetic about seeing me run races.  He went along  to see me run a few times in the last couple yrs of HS, and I recall the previous yr, he and My Mother came to a race in Delaware, he missed the entire race, standing on a line to use a Port-a-John...brilliant!  We butt heads, and generally have a rough time, "getting along".
But there he was, and I actually saw him before the race, we chatted for a couple minutes, he may have joked that he had plenty of time to hit the head this time! Most of the rest of it all was a bit of a blur in all honesty, but I recall hearing my Father's voice several times as I ran by. And it made all the difference on that day. I ran a PR by more than 30 seconds, my time of 29:34 for 8k felt impossibly fast for me then! I finished as the team's 5th man!

Dad congratulated me afterward, paid me some compliments of which details have long since been lost in my memory.  My teammates' parents had come to meets that were nearer to home, but my Dad somehow timed it just right, and managed to see us run in the biggest meet of the season hundreds of mile from home!
 The details of that weekend will remain in my memory for the rest of my days.  Mark shouting through the walls from one room to the next, "Anis, that's ten pushups!", after catching me cursing the crappy TV; the weird bus driver(let's just say he was weird), Orgazmo, and my crazy teammates...bunch of whacko's! And my Dad, and his New England Motor Freight truck rolling into the park, how surprised I was. He knows, that I appreciated this, and I'll be sure to tell him again the next time I see him.  People can redeem themselves, so be ready to be glad when they do.  I'll always remember all of this.